Bad timing for ASEAN peacekeeping force

The Strait Times, Asia News Network, Singapore

Indonesia has been pushing the idea of an ASEAN Security Community since the leaders' summit in Bali last November. It wants ASEAN to break new ground by playing an active role in resolving regional conflicts. To do this, Jakarta favors the creation of an ASEAN peacekeeping force that could be deployed when there is trouble in any of the 10 member-states. Its Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda thinks that this can bolster regional security and build the foundation for more security cooperation among South-east Asian countries.

But his ASEAN colleagues are cool to the proposal. Singapore's Foreign Minister S. Jayakumar said ASEAN was the wrong entity to play a peacekeeping role because it was neither a security nor a defense organization. His Vietnamese counterpart Nguyen Dy Nien shares this view. It was "too early" to think of setting up a peacekeeping force, Nien said. "Each country has its own policy about politics and the military."

Note that they had not rejected the Indonesian proposal outright. Indeed, the idea to set up an ASEAN Security Community by 2020 had been endorsed by the region's leaders. But an ASEAN peacekeeping force is an idea that is ahead of its time. There is no pressing need for it now. Above all, there are practical difficulties to overcome, as things stand.

It would quickly become problematic when actual deployment of peacekeepers breaches ASEAN's hallowed principle of non- interference in each other's domestic affairs. This principle has long governed ASEAN relations and scrupulous adherence to it has kept the peace in the region. Deploying an ASEAN peacekeeping force is bound to breach this principle and create new problems. The separatist conflicts in Indonesia's Aceh province, the Philippines' Mindanao island, and Thailand's southern provinces spring to mind. These are sensitive domestic security issues that have regional implications.

True, security and economics are two sides of the same coin. There is nothing to prevent ASEAN countries from pursuing economic and security integration simultaneously. There is ample scope to develop these ideas. But for now, there is no agreement on the need for a peacekeeping force. The regional entity is still in the midst of an uphill battle to speed up economic recovery in the face of growing competition from China and India. It makes more sense for ASEAN to focus its energies on establishing an economic community first.